The Vancouver Book

Yesterday, the youngin and I went up to Bellingham for the day and happened to stop in the Eclipse Bookstore, a FANTASTIC used bookstore. It takes up two stories and has some real treasures. For some perspective, here's a photo I took near the main stacks upstairs, looking out onto a deck and at Bellingham Bay.

In those stacks, there were regional book sections and I found The Vancouver Book, an almanac of information about the city, it's history, people, resources, etc. It is so intriguing and idiosyncratic that I brought it home and decided to give a feel for the book by posting some pictures in/from it.

First, the front and back covers:


And then there's its horoscope. yes, the author thought it would be useful to take the book's horoscope and include it in the book:



And some of the chapter illustrations.

King Leopold's Ghost (the history of a little known Holocaust)

Personal Background

For most of my life I haven't thought much about Belgium, either positively or negatively. Their beer is pretty tasty and there was a certain sympathy about the country being used as an invasion route by the Germans in two World Wars. The European Union is based there. But I didn’t know much more than that.

As Adam Hochschild describes in “King Leopold’s Ghost”, however, there were hints of something unsavory that wasn’t widely discussed. I remember being at the house of a friend in the early 1980s playing Trivial Pursuit with his family and the distasteful way he responded to a question with a name previously unknown to me: the Belgian Congo. There was a hint in his answer of some deeply unsavory history but the nasty legacies of imperialism that still haunt our lives are in the news daily and I never really looked any more deeply into it.

But those were the days before the Internet and now it's easy to start looking for information about a book or movie and have it lead into some serious reading about historical context - information that would have required weeks of research is now available in a few minutes. In my case, a search for information about Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" lead to 1) a surprising comment very critical of it as racist and 2) a reference to Adam Hochschild's book, "King Leopold's Ghost."

To put it bluntly, "King Leopold's Ghost" is one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. I also feel that it is one of the most important books I have read recently, for reasons which I will delve into presently. Never forget? But people have...

King Leopold's Ghost

"The title of "King Leopold's Ghost" comes from this stanza in Vachel Lindsay's poem, "The Congo":

Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.

The focus of the hate in that stanza, King Leopold II, was the second king of the Belgians. A monarch with contempt for his own country, which he characterized as "small country, small people", Leopold was obsessed with joining the colonial "gold rush" to claim bits of Africa. After considering various harebrained schemes such as draining lakes in the Nile delta and claiming the new land as a colony, Leopold found success by cynically exploiting the concerns of Europeans and Americans aflutter about the exploitation of Africa by Arab slave traders. At a conference in 1876, Leopold manipulated representatives from these countries into establishing the International African Association, with himself as "temporary" chairman.

Never pulling punches, the book notes the hypocrisy in that concern coming from countries which had until recently taken slaves from anybody who would provide them...

Through the work of the ruthlessly violent Henry Morton Stanley, Leopold hoodwinked rulers of some 450 Congo basin chiefs into signing trade agreements, title to their land...and an agreement to provide labor to the organization/country that was to become known as the Congo Free State. In essence, Stanley obtained their ill-informed consent to be robbed blind and have their people used as slave labor.

The Congo Free State lasted from 1877 to 1908. Supposedly intended to fight slavery and enhance the lives of Congo natives with free trade, it instead became a slavery-based organization which drained the riches of ivory and later rubber trees and fed them back, primarily, for the enrichment of King Leopold. And it was a particularly brutal form of slavery, with a heavy accent on murder, rape, hostage taking and mutilation. Its symbols became the stump of a slave with a hand or foot cut off and the chicotte, a sharp-edged whip made of dried hippopotamus hide. Punishment with the chicotte was often lethal.

International Response

Eventually word filtered back about what Leopold's "anti-slavery" organization was doing in Africa, international pressure began building to curtail these abuses. Brave voices spoke out based on the horrors they had seen: Roger Casement, George Washington Williams, William Shepard and Hezekiah Andrew Shanu. E.D. Morel never left Belgium but deduced that the system involved slavery by seeing weapons and soldiers but no trade goods be sent to the Congo and valuable ivory and rubber return. Some of these early ancestors of Amnesty International paid with their lives, either in fighting to end slavery in the Congo, opposing World War I (Morel) or for Irish Independence (Casement). Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle opposed the Congo Free State. Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", considered racist by some is clearly against Leopold's organization and supportive of the Congo's natives.

In the end, Belgium was shamed into taking over the Congo Free State through the distasteful expedient of buying it from the avaricious Leopold. Abuses lessened, though it never became a beacon of civilization. When the region became free in 1960, the departing Belgians patronizingly challenged the Congolese to "justify our confidence". Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's justifiably bitter counter-speech, while no doubt satisfying, probably sealed his fate when he was later arrested and murdered by rival elements within his government, with the complicit support of the United States AND the United Nations.

An African Holocaust - 8 to 10 Million Dead

Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust are wont to use the expression "Never again!", with one of the evils they must face being the occasional reappearance of those denying the Holocaust. And surely part of our duty as humans is to be aware of some of the worst atrocities the human race has been capable of, in order that we can avoid similar horrible directions in the future.

Yet there is widespread unawareness that the rape of the Congo by Leopold and Belgium cost a toll of lives comparable to Hitler's Holocaust and how Belgium's contemptible rationalization and quibbling about the details of that death toll continues to this very day. Belgium is home to the Royal Museum for Central Africa, which has been conducting a petty feud with Hochschild since this book was published, focusing legalistically on whether genocide was the intent of Belgium's atrocities.

The human race can do better that this but not until we look unflinchingly at the truth. And the opportunity to do so provided by this book's window on a grotesque and horrible injustice makes it a tool to aid in finding truth.

Coming soon: the books of Robert Ruark

Time can be fickle – it causes silly, trivial stuff to be remembered and some really horrid things like Jar-Jar Binks and dialogue written by George Lucas gets lodged in your head so deeply that even a lobotomy might not succeed in removing it. At the same time, a lot of really valuable stuff disappears or is forgotten and so shining some light onto an old book stack often yields treasures. Some of those forgotten treasures can be found in the writings of Robert Ruark.

Ben Gadd’s “Handbook of the Canadian Rockies”

Disclaimer: The review you’re about to read will not be an astringent, detached, hypercritical review. This retrograde, gun-happy USan loves Canada and I have enjoyed this book massively. If you’re looking for a jaundiced review with the hidden agenda of eliminating the crypto-fascist sport of Curling, please look elsewhere.

Some books seem to have their own personalities: verbose, chatty, dry or moody but they leave you feeling as if you’ve just sat down and talked with the author, instead of absorbing second hand something they typed into a machine. This is one such book and its personality is a pleasant one, deeply informative and very witty. It’s like running into a favorite teacher after you’ve spent 20 years learning your own lessons and finding them still as engaging and interesting as you remember.

The funny thing is that this book shouldn’t be so engaging: its 800 pages cover a wide variety of topics in great depth. The credit for the accessibility of this information can only belong to its author. Seriously, I’ve got a shelf full of books about Western Canada and this is one of about 2-3 that I’ll fit into my backpack when I motorcycle up to the Rockies this Summer. If I could only take one, this would be the one.

As for the handbook’s contents… pick a topic and it’s probably inside. It covers the geology of the Canadian Rockies; life zones, weather and seasons; plants and animals; human history and things to do during your visit; safety, first aid and futures. There are 800 pages of this information here and I find myself reading through it avidly.

So far I’ve been attempting to convey the book’s tone. Let me describe a bit about its content, which is clearly planned out to engage people who are visiting for whatever reason and help them enjoy and LEARN from their visit, as much as possible. At the risk of seeming hyperbolic, this is a book that can enhance your visit to the Canadian Rockies, no matter what your original purpose in visiting was.

First off, after looking at how much of each type of content is provided, I find it quite interesting that some 2/3 of the book’s 800 pages are concerned with 1) the geology of the area and 2) its plants and animals.

The geology section describes the various types of rock found in the park and how natural forces created and placed them, their locations and formations being further shaped by the slow sculpting of glaciers. When you’re looking at striking rock layers on a rock wall (or a lonely, mysterious glacial erratic) and wonder how they got there, the geology section can help you really understand the story that those rocks represent.

Moving on, fully half the book is devoted to plants and animals of the park. Accompanying the words are a wealth of high quality drawings and photos of those plants and animals. Mushrooms, ferns, and trees… every kind of animal, from earthworms and the ubiquitous mosquito to grizzly bears and even a wry, witty description of that wacky mammal, Homo Sapiens. Information about indigenous animals describes their habits and behavior; drawings of their skulls, footprints and droppings are included so that hikers can decipher some of the drama that has recently occurred where they are walking.

Any visit to the park will be deeply influenced by the weather, be it daily precipitation, seasonal accumulations or melting of snow. Details regarding what might be expected in various life zones, e.g., sub-alpine woods, burn zones, the mountain summits themselves, are presented.

In regard to the human history of the Rockies, information is provided about all the human history there: not just the 250 years or so or transplanted European history but also known history of native tribes and peoples who have lived or passed through the area.

Certainly anyone who will make the effort of visiting the Canadian Rockies has some purpose for doing so. However, the handbook also details some of the author’s favorite sights and places. There are vistas to view and say “Awe” (in fact Yoho is a whole park devoted to that) and some of the best recreational opportunities in North America. The very best are detailed here. It must be noted however that no information about Curling opportunities is presented.

While this area is deeply gorgeous and fascinating, there are things that can bite you here, both figuratively and literally. There’s traffic to be aware of and all the normal risks of whatever outdoor recreational endeavors you choose are obviously present here as well. The handbook describes many of these and provides some basics on first aid should somebody be hurt.

Finally, the handbook includes plenty of information on how to keep the park safe from damage caused by you and some steps that can help protect these fantastic resources and sites for future generations.

Let me conclude this review by emphasizing that with all the detailed and sometimes technical information presented in this handbook, it is a deeply entertaining and enjoyable read, due to the deft writing and wry humor of Ben Gadd. I am using the handbook to help plan my visit this Summer, taking it along with me for information and entertainment and will certainly use it after wards, as a resource when I write about my trip.

Timshel

OK, here's one teaser for a favorite part of a favorite book.

I think John Steinbeck is one of the very best authors the US has ever produced. I'd been reading him for some years and read "East of Eden" just after moving to Northern California, so it's very connected to a fun part of my early life.

The "timshel" speech is magnificent in several respects: it speaks to the noble nature that the human race is capable of and is also a brilliant example of the American melting pot. A Chinese man explaining to early 20th Century Californians (dude) about how he learned to read/speak Hebrew to better understand a passage that differed in translations of the Bible.

Not a religious passage but a spiritual one.

What this blog is about - Welcome to my Bookshelves!

I've always been a reader: when I was about 5, I read everything I could find about dinosaurs and remember arguing with the teacher in 1st or 2nd grade about what time range it was exactly when dinosaurs lived. Yes, I was that annoying, nerdy kid and not much has changed: only the hair has a lot more grey in it. But I became a computer programmer and not a paleontologist.

Over the years, I've read or accumulated a lot of books and there have been a lot of them that I've deeply enjoyed. Work has been pretty demanding over the past few years but I've still got a fairly decent collection that has been distilled down through the years and I will be using this blog to talk about my favorites. The photos above show something like 10% of my bookshelves.

Future topics:
- Are you a motorcyclist, got a motorcyclist in your life or willing to consider their viewpoint? Then you HAVE to read Peter Egan's books and a few others: Ted Simon, Austin Vince, Lois Pryce.

- Are you a gun nerd, got a gun nerd in your life or willing to consider their viewpoint? Then I have some books that are really worth a look. Women competing on an equal footing with men in 1906?! An NRA branch helping the NAACP in the South in the 1950s?! Interesting stuff.

- John Steinbeck...Richard Brautigan...Harlan Ellison...Neil Gaiman...

- Ben Gadd's fantastic "Handbook of the Canadian Rockies", a deeply entertaining book covering everything about one of the most gorgeous spots on Earth.

- Great tech books, e.g., some fantastic books about the history and techniques of cryptography/cryptanalysis.

And then there's the checkered story of the book shown below...